http://www.truthout.com/0007_Waters.htm
t r u t h o u t Exclusive - 3.11.01

"The recent revelations in Florida around the presidential election this past November, 7th. certainly do raise serious questions about, whether or not we really do have the right to vote. Certainly we have struggled hard and we have come a long way and according to the law, we have the right to vote. But what we have come to understand in recent days and weeks is that your vote may not be counted for any number of reasons.

Some of those reasons have to with decisions that are made by election supervisors in the way that they manage the elections, some of those decisions made because of the layout of the ballot, we saw that with the layout of the butterfly ballot down in Florida. There the dots didn't match up with the names. Then we're finding that even when the votes are so called 'counted' that the machine may miss your vote-your ballot and not count your vote, or the chad may not be dislodged properly in your ballot and it may not be counted, or that other decisions have been made about the management and the implementation of the voting systems either knowingly or unknowingly that would cause your vote to be thrown out, not counted, disregarded or you may never get to the polls, to the voting both rather, even though you came to the polls to vote because you've been challenged about your ID. Some people where asked for two forms of ID. Some people where stopped and asked about their past record, weather or not they where felons. Some people where on a list, listed as felons who where not felons. So we're finding that there are 101 ways by which someone can be disenfranchised. And while we have the legal right to vote we may in fact be prevented from voting because any one of the situations I have eluded to and maybe some others.

So I think our challenge and our chore is to clean up this mess, to review all of these systems, to examine the power of election supervisors to look at machines that are used to find out weather or not machines are working properly weather or not there are older machines in poor neighborhoods in African American neighborhoods weather or not there's a plot or a scheme to deny the right to vote to people of color, taking us back to the days when blacks could be legally excluded from voting.

All of these questions are at the forefront of our democracy at this time. This is not simply a black issue this is a voting rights issue for everybody. I think a lot of people are absolutely amazed that their vote may not be counted no matter what color they are. So our challenge and our chore is to correct it, to get it right, to make sure that we take the problems out of the system and take out all opportunities for intrigue that may exist in many corners across this country that are denying people their right to vote."